-LRB- CNN -RRB- -- The news that NBC plans to dump Jay Leno -- again -- lifts the curtain on a dark corner of the media business .

Is it the fact that a network could be thickheaded enough to call the same play that blew up last time with the Conan O'Brien debacle ? Nah . That 's pretty obvious .

It 's the way that television critics despise Leno , and how that colors the coverage of the late-night wars .

When The New York Times ' Bill Carter broke the story last week that NBC is ready to hand `` The Tonight Show '' to Jimmy Fallon in 2014 , there was this line buried deep in the piece : `` Another complicating factor has been Mr. Leno 's success in the ratings . ''

Let 's ponder that for a moment . Leno has the top-rated show at 11:30 . NBC executives are nonetheless planning on booting him when his contract expires in the fall of 2014 and moving the show from Burbank , California , to New York .

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Imagine how that story line would play out if critics and reporters viewed Leno as sympathetically as they do , say , Fallon or Leno 's ABC rival , Jimmy Kimmel .

What ?? NBC is kicking Jay to the curb ? The guy who has made the network hundreds of millions of dollars over the last two decades ? The man who bounced back from his last firing and regained the late-night throne ? What did he do to deserve this ?

Instead the media reaction is a collective shrug of the shoulders : Yeah , makes sense . Time to wheel the old guy off the stage . Jay has n't been funny since the Clinton administration and Fallon appeals to a younger crowd .

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Time 's James Poniewozik writes that `` Jay ` It 's just a business ' Leno deserves no man 's pity however this plays out . '' The Atlantic complains about his `` groan-worthy jokes . ''

But here 's the thing : Leno does n't appeal to anyone but the viewers . At least those who live west of the Hudson River and east of the Santa Monica Mountains . He does broad comedy and hardly wields the kind of cutting-edge style favored by the bicoastal elites . But much of America likes him .

Does the 62-year-old comic skew old ? Well , he 's been beating Kimmel and David Letterman even in the coveted 18-to-49 demo .

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The critics made the same mistake last time around . Conan was so much funnier than Jay that giving him `` Tonight '' rather than risking his departure was a brilliant move by NBC . Except that O'Brien 's quirky humor appealed to a narrow slice of the audience , the ratings plummeted , and a $ 32 million payout later , he was gone and Leno was back .

Leno has been punching back in his monologue , likening NBC suits to `` snakes '' and saying that the network 's motto is `` The Biggest Loser . '' The Times reports that a top executive ordered Leno to stop mocking the network , a ham-handed attempt at censorship that has obviously failed .

One strange twist is that some conservative pundits are carping that NBC is ousting Leno because of his jokes about President Obama -LRB- he ribs every president -RRB- and because , unlike the more openly liberal Letterman , he appeals to the heartland .

It 's obviously more of a dollars-and-cents gamble that Fallon is the future . And indeed , Jimmy Fallon makes sense as Leno 's eventual heir .

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But in their haste , NBC execs risk blowing up the situation the way they did in hustling Ann Curry off the `` Today '' show , sparking a backlash against Matt Lauer and sending what had been the iconic morning show plunging into second place . Their prime-time lineup is in fifth place . Do they really need to immolate one of the few time periods where the network is No. 1 ? Fallon 's a young guy . Johnny Carson was 66 when he stepped down . What 's the rush ?

The critics , of course , wo n't be happy until Leno is working the comedy clubs where he spends his vacations -LRB- and possibly competing against NBC from Fox -RRB- . And they are entitled to their views of who has comedic chops and who is out of gas . But in this case , they 're out of touch with the people who vote with their remote controls .

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Howard Kurtz : NBC 's plan to replace Jay Leno sits well with critics

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He says Leno 's brand of comedy appeals to much of America

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Critics are free to prefer Fallon , Kimmel , but replacing Leno is risky , he says